


In vino veritas

by Tiger_Tiger_Burning_Bright



Category: Cut & Run - Madeleine Urban & Abigail Roux
Genre: Angst, Gen, Liam never forgets, Liam remembers, Rated teen for darker themes, Set pre touch and geaux, some nights you just need to drink
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-14
Updated: 2019-10-14
Packaged: 2020-12-16 02:16:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,912
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21028616
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tiger_Tiger_Burning_Bright/pseuds/Tiger_Tiger_Burning_Bright
Summary: Some nights you just need to be alone. Some nights the darkness is overwhelming. Some nights only whiskey works.





	In vino veritas

**Author's Note:**

  * For [PrettyBoyAlexander](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PrettyBoyAlexander/gifts).

> This is not my fault. This is all down to others. Look what you did guys :-)
> 
> Unbetad so any mistakes are all on me. Sorry about that.

Liam Bell placed the bottle almost reverentially on the table and sat back on his chair just to look at it for a moment. It looked wrong, out of place; a two hundred dollar bottle of whisky sat on a stained and chipped plastic table in a dead end motel. Out of place, wrong. He smiled wryly, it was strangely apt. 

He glanced around the room as it illuminated in flashes from the neon sign outside the window. He hadn’t bothered to switch on the lights, didn’t need to see the stained industrial carpet and the threadbare sheets, not tonight. On the far side of the room there was what laughingly passed for a drinks station, if you counted a dented kettle, two chipped mugs and two scratched thick green glass tumblers. Liam stood and stalked over, grabbing one of the glasses, not even bothering to hide his contempt. He really should’ve brought a glass with him but even a mass produced industrial tumbler was preferable to swigging out of the bottle. He may be at rock bottom but even he wasn’t that far down yet.

Sitting down again he reached for the bottle and opened it, pausing for a second to inhale the smell of the hard liquor before sloshing a healthy amount into the glass. He swallowed down a mouthful, relishing the burn and the flavour taking over his senses, anything to drown out the noise in his head.

There were other ways of course. It would’ve been easy to go to some non descript bar and pick up some guy to take his frustrations out on in a far more pleasurable manner. That feeling never lasted long though, not long enough and his subconscious had an uncanny knack of picking targets that were almost invariably some pale imitation of Tyler. It was the last thing he needed tonight.

He drained the glass, refilling it again, momentarily pausing to acknowledge that he really should appreciate the whiskey more before downing the lot. The warm glow of alcohol helped at least a little to mask the emptiness in his soul.

Sometimes on nights like this he wondered if there’d been a point in his life where if he’d taken a different path he wouldn’t have ended up here, alone and drinking to forget, or was this his inevitable fate. Where did the blame lie? Was it the endless stream of foster homes where he never fit in? The group homes when he was a teenager that cared more for the money they made off their residents than helping troubled teens? Did it really matter anymore?

As he refilled his glass he thought back to the one person who’d tried in his own way to help. Liam had been seventeen, had given up on the group home deciding even living on the streets was preferable. Life back then was about survival, which in retrospect was good practice for the life he lived now, you did what you had to. In Liam’s case it’d been car stereos. He’d been good, careful, picking his targets strategically, never damaging the cars and whilst he would probably have made more money stealing the actual cars themselves, there was something that felt wrong about doing that. A step too far for even him.

He wasn’t sure what was different about that night, he’d been careful as usual, scouting his surroundings with the utmost care. Maybe it had just been bad luck, maybe it was destiny. Did even really matter anymore? All that mattered was the hand on his shoulder as he walked the darkened streets, high end stereo tucked in his jacket. He still remembered turning, free hand curling into fist, tensed to fight his corner before seeing the uniform and slumping in defeat. 

What he’d expected he hadn’t known but it certainly hadn’t been what had happened. The cop had been one of the good ones, old school. 

“You look like you need some food son.” He’d smiled as Liam had shifted awkwardly. “Tell you what you put that stereo back and we’ll forget about it. We’ll get something to eat and have a chat eh?”

He hadn’t had much of a choice. The officer had walked him back to the car and Liam had dutifully dumped the stereo back on the seat receiving an approving nod and a smile. He remembered thinking he knew where this was going, that the cop was pretending to care but that the evening would inevitably end with Liam on his knees in a back alley, dirty water soaking his threadbare jeans. It hadn’t ended that way. The cop was true to his word. He’d taken Liam to a pub, paid for his dinner and the only thing Liam had had to do in return was listen.

They’d sat by the window, looking out at the dark streets.

“You don’t want this to be your life son. Trust me I know where this goes.” The cop had said. “You have choice right now. See that over the road.”

The cop had nodded over the road and Liam had glanced across 

“You need to turn your life around. Seems to me you have two choices. Stay as you are and spend your life in and out of jail or make something of yourself.” The cop had stood and walked over to the bar, settling the bill before walking back and placing a scrawled name and number on the back of the receipt. “I’ll be keeping an eye out. Make the right choice.”

Liam had sat in the pub, nursing his pint of lukewarm beer, staring at the name and number before glancing out of the window to the building opposite. The very next day he’d walked into the front door and signed up to join the army.

Liam grabbed the bottle, sloshing the liquid into the glass before raising it skyward.

“Here’s to you sergeant Moore,” he said before downing the drink in one go, “congratulations on creating a monster.”

The road to hell really was paved with good intentions.

The worst part was that it had been everything Liam had ever wanted at the start. He’d belonged, been a part of something and for the first time in his life he’d felt like he had a family.

Thinking back now he probably wanted it too much. He’d pushed himself too hard to be the best he could, to not give them a reason to say he hadn’t made the grade. What happened next had been inevitable, another step on the path to this seedy motel. He’d been too good, too fast, too clever. The higher ups noticed. The SAS noticed.

Special forces had been a natural fit for him, a chance to reinvent himself, to become the Liam Bell everyone now knew. They’d all started at the same level even the Sandringham types, men who’d got there by being born with every advantage. Liam had excelled, moving up the ranks without trying. It hadn’t taken long to have his own command, a small group of men so close they became like his family. 

It started to go wrong so slowly and subtly that even now it was difficult to pinpoint the moment things changed. Slowly but surely the horrors they’d seen began to chip away at all of them, the bodies littering the bombed out compounds in Africa, a child’s shoe the only thing left from the young suicide bomber in Afghanistan. They got cold, they got careless, it was inevitable. 

Liam’s hand shook as he reached for the glass, the bottle now half empty. If he closed his eyes he could still see the moment when the first of them lost it in the middle of battle, could hear the sounds of the bullets that tore through him, could smell the gunpowder in the air. He could remember in excruciating detail the feeling of holding a man he considered a brother in his arms as the life seemed out of him, his blood staining the desert sands. 

He remembered the man who finally cracked at the base, remembered holding him down as he ranted and raved in the dirt. He remembered arriving back and standing in the rain at the funeral of the same man who’d decided it was all too much and ended it with a bottle of pills and a bottle of cheap vodka. Liam placed a hand to his cheek and swore he could still feel the sting on his cheek where the man's wife had slapped him as her toddler son clung to her skirt. He'd been supposed to protect her husband, protect them all and he’d failed. She told him she’d never forgive him. It was fine, he’d never forgive himself so what did it matter.

Liam drained another glass and thought back wondering what the NIA had seen in him. A man so broken that he was easy to mould into the weapon they wanted. A man who’d closed himself off having seen his brothers being picked off one by one either by enemies or the demons in their own minds. 

He’d thought back then it would be the answer and for a while it was. It wouldn't last. It never did. 

He’d thought he’d blocked himself off, thought the last vestiges of humanity had left him, burned away with gunfire. He’d been wrong. For a while he’d wanted to die, sought it out, took more and more risks. Every time he escaped and every time the higher ups were more and more impressed with his work. Then Sidewinder happened.

It had supposed to be a routine assignment, a break from the murder and mayhem. Maybe that’s why he’d let his guard down, maybe it was something else. Perhaps it was the constant never ending craving for family that was buried deep down in his psyche. It didn’t really matter, all that mattered was that for a while he’d been able to pretend he had friends. Sidewinder had embraced him like a warm blanket and days that had once been filled with darkness became filled with light and laughter. Then there was Tyler, Beaumont Tyler Grady. 

Liam downed another drink, despite his high tolerance he could feel the effect buzzing through his veins, making everything fuzzy and distant. Making it bearable.

Fuck it had been so easy to love Ty, so damn easy. Ty would never love him back, he knew that and maybe that was at least in part why he fell. He should’ve known better, he should’ve been more careful. He hadn’t been and all he’d been left with is a scar just below his heart and a picture etched into his mind of Tyler face when he found out how Liam had betrayed them. Undoubtedly it was what he deserved.

The burner phone in his pocket buzzed, it’s timing painfully perfect. He placed it on the table. They wanted an answer, the cartels didn't wait.

“Goddammit” Liam hurled his glass against the wall, watching it shatter and shards of glass fall to the floor.

He had a choice. He could walk away. Except of course he couldn’t. He could live with most things but not that, never that.

He grabbed the bottle drinking straight from it before grabbing the phone. It was time to face his demons. Time to play the role of the bastard Liam Bell. Time to face Sidewinder. It was the only chance to keep them safe.  
  


**Author's Note:**

> So we have a Cut & Run server who’s essentially a bunny farm at this point. Come and join us and scream about the books. I’ll try and post a link but it really doesn’t seem to be working at the moment.


End file.
